“Oh the joy of walking!” – From Charleston to Monks House on foot

Here is the loveliest of posts from interns at Charlestown. In it, they share their walk across the Sussex Downs to Monk’s House, where they encounter a reading of “Between the Acts” on the lawn. Bliss!

As cool autumnal colours spread across the landscape and misty grey mornings shade the South Downs behind Charleston, we remember our last week with our fellow interns Alice and Samantha. This last week together, the last in September, was bright and warm. On one glorious morning we strode out from Charleston, taking inspiration from Virginia Woolf, following in her footsteps across the Downs to her seventeenth century cottage Monks House in Rodmell.

Striding across the Downs

Having scaled the steep ascent, following our navigator Alice, we looked down upon Charleston as Virginia Woolf would have done, writing to Vanessa Bell in May 1916 “I wish you’d leave Wissett…